1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information collecting apparatus for collecting maintenance information and the like (counter information, error log information, consumable component information, etc.) on network apparatuses connected to a network, a method of controlling the information collecting apparatus, a network apparatus, a method of controlling the network apparatus, and a storage medium storing each of programs for implementing the methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
Devices, typified by an image forming apparatus, each store a large amount of maintenance information including management data and log data for management thereof, and consumable component information. Further, in recent years, devices of the above-mentioned type have been networked, i.e. mostly connected to networks so as to be operated as network apparatuses.
In this situation, there has been proposed a system in which a user collects management information from devices (network apparatuses) on a LAN to perform centralized management of the devices. Further, a system in which pieces of information on devices are collected in a server apparatus on the Internet for centralized management has also been proposed so as to facilitate device maintenance by a service person.
Further, there have been proposed two methods of achieving the system in which pieces of information are collected in a server apparatus on the Internet. In a first method, an information collecting device collects information on a plurality of devices on the same network and collectively sends the device information to the server apparatus on the Internet, while in a second method, each device sends information on itself to the server apparatus.
There has also been proposed a technique in which in the former method, a second-priority device is provided in advance to be reserved for occurrence of a trouble with the information collecting device, and when a trouble occurs in the information collecting device, the second-priority device substitutes for the information collecting device (see e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2006-040258).
However, a problem with the above-mentioned prior art is that a device for operating on behalf of the information collecting device as the second-priory device does not always exist, and hence when no such second-priority device which can operate on behalf of the information collecting device exists, the collection of device information cannot be continued. Further, in the prior art, even if the second-proxy device exists, it does not take over data collected so far, which can cause some omission in collected information.